Just A Little Unwell
by dragonchrysalis
Summary: Claudia insists that she's not crazy; that the institution was simply society's response to her unwavering insistence that Joshua was alive. But there's more going on than she cares to admit, and the agents are worried. It will take the minds of all of them to figure out how to help Claudia.
1. Chapter 1

The first time she has a panic attack at the Warehouse, she's not technically at the Warehouse. She's in bed at the B sound asleep, when she wakes up suddenly, disoriented and terrified. Pieces of dreams snag at the edges of her mind, but drift away before she can get a hold on them, and she can't place this unknown feeling of dread. It's overwhelming, all powerful, forcing its way up from her stomach into her throat and finally out her mouth in a small little cry. Once the cry is uttered, there's no holding back the flood of tears, and hard as she may try to stifle her sobs, they're not exactly quiet.

Myka appears at her door, hair mussed from sleep and wearing a bathrobe tied neatly over her pajamas. She takes in the sobbing girl curled up in a fetal position with a single glance.

"Claude?" she queries. "Are you okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she crosses the room and sits down on Claudia's bed. She begins to stroke the younger girl's back.

"Shhh….it's okay. It's okay." She soothes, though she's not entirely sure what, exactly, is supposed to be "okay". "What's wrong?"

"I – I don't _know_!" Claudia chokes out through a fountain of tears. Taken aback, Myka ceases rubbing Claudia's back for a moment. She's the practical, concrete type. The idea that someone can be crying this hard for an unknown reason baffles her.

Suddenly, Pete appears at the door, clad only in a pair of boxer shorts. The sight of Claudia sobbing and Myka trying to comfort her takes him a few seconds longer to process than it took Myka.

"What's going on?" he asks curiously. "Are we – are we having a slumber party or something here? Because I didn't get the invite." Myka glares at him, sending a clear message that now is not the time to be joking around. He shrugs helplessly. Claudia lifts her tearstained face from the pillow and promptly dives back down at the sight of the shirtless Pete.

"Oh, man, I _so_ didn't need to see that." She mumbles into the sheets.

"Pete." Myka punctuates the word with another glare. "This is kind of a….girl thing. So if you could just –"

"Oh! Oh, no, I wasn't planning on – you didn't think I was – I'm just going to…" Clearly embarrassed, Pete backs quickly out of the room. Myka resumes her attempts to comfort the distraught Claudia. It's not a girl thing, or at least she doesn't think so, but nothing gets a man out of a room faster than the mention of periods.

It takes another half hour before Claudia is calm enough to talk. She looks exhausted now and it only serves to remind Myka how very young the Warehouse's resident techie girl is.

"Myka." Claudia sighs. "I think I'm okay now. You can leave."

"Are you sure?" Myka can't help but let on that she's worried, just a little bit. "I can bring my pillow and blankets in here…we can have that slumber party Pete was talking about." Her attempt at humor doesn't go unnoticed; neither does her offer to sleep in the room. Myka normally avoids sleepovers like the plague. Instantly, Claudia feels guilty.

"No, Myka, it's okay. Go back to sleep. I'm sorry for waking you up and going all mental on you." Myka eyes her uneasily.

"Okay, then….just remember, I'm right down the hall if you need me. Pete, too, though I'm not sure he'll want to come back in here." Claudia stifles a small chuckle.

"Go. Oh, and Myka?" Myka pauses at the threshold.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." Myka smiles.

"No problem, Claude."

After that, Claudia is asleep within minutes. But Myka lies awake, worrying about her friend, until the wee hours of the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time, it starts, innocently enough, with some fooling around with the Teslas. Since so far it has been a ping-free day, Artie charges the three restless agents with making sure all Teslas were charged and in peak operating condition. Which meant only one thing….

"Target practice!" Pete crows gleefully, waving his Tesla around like a little boy playing army. Claudia and Myka stifle their grins. A large cardboard target has been set up to minimize the danger of hitting any precious artifacts and Pete eyes it carefully.

"Bang, bang, you're dead!" he announces, firing his Tesla in a steady stream at the target. Unfortunately, it misses the bulls-eye by only a few inches. Myka saunters up behind him.

"Let me show you how it's _really_ done." She lifts the firearm and, looking straight down the barrel, fires. The electric blue energy hits the bulls-eye and burns a hole straight through. Looking smug, Myka hoists her Tesla onto her shoulder.

"Beat that." Pete, always the sore loser, looks distinctly ruffled by the fact that he just got beaten at target practice by a woman.

"Oh, I will." He promises, and then a dangerous gleam comes into his eyes. "I have just the thing." He runs off, and before the two women can do more than exchange bewildered looks, he returns with two apples. One of them, he's munching on. The other he holds aloft.

"Hey, Claude, balance this on your head, will ya?" Claudia eyes him skeptically.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Pete waves away her worries.

"Positive. I'm the sharpest shooter in South Dakota!" A thought occurs to him. "Hey, do you think Leena could make apple pie with Tesla-ed apples?"

"I'm not sure how that would taste…" Myka muses.

"Only one way to find out." Pete declares. "Claudia, catch!" She catches the flying apple with no trouble and, rolling her eyes, settles it on top of her head.

"Now stand still." Pete warns. "I don't want to hit you."

"Yeah, I don't want you to hit me, either." She grumbles. Directing a steely gaze at his target, Pete zeroes in on the apple, pulls the trigger, and…

WHAM! A sizzling burst of energy comes shooting out of the Tesla. At first, it seems like Pete is going to hit his target, but at the last second, the energy shifts just a little bit to the left, hitting Claudia square in the forehead. Myka dashes forward to catch the girl as she collapses.

"Pete!" Myka admonishes. "You just Tesla-ed Claudia!" Pete looks pale.

"Shit, I didn't mean to do that…she's gonna kill me when she wakes up." Just then, as if on cue, Claudia starts groaning softly. However, the groans soon turn into panicked moans and desperate thrashing around on the floor.

"No….Dr. Michener, please stop!" she cries, convulsing against the Warehouse floor. "I'm begging you….it hurts! IT HURTS!" Myka tightens her grip on Claudia's shoulders in an attempt to keep the girl's head from striking the floor too hard.

"Claudia. Claudia!" she yells. "It's okay, you're here, you're at the Warehouse. You're safe." Claudia's eyes snap open and she stares directly into Myka's eyes with a look that chills the other agent to the bone.

"But how can I be sure you're real?" she whimpers. Pete kneels down in front of her.

"Claudia, we're real, I promise, you're safe. Touch my hands." He extends his hands in front of him, brushing Claudia's with the barest of touches. Slowly, tentatively, she stretches her own hands out to meet his. Gradually, her eyes begin to come back into focus.

"Pete? Myka?" she whispers. Myka begins rocking her slowly back and forth.

"That's right, Claude, we're here, you're okay, you're safe."

"I thought…." Claudia began.

"We know." Pete and Myka say in unison. Claudia's clearly embarrassed as she shakes off Myka's hold.

"Well, what are we all standing around here for? Mister Grumpypants is gonna smite us if we don't get any work done." They work in awkward silence for a few minutes, no one wanting to acknowledge what just happened. Finally, Claudia can't stand it anymore.

"Look, guys, I gotta go…do something. I'll be back in a little bit, okay?" Without another word, she takes off running, her footfalls fading across the aisles. Not five minutes later, a second, harder set of footsteps approach them. Artie's eyes widen as he takes in the dilapidated aisle, the dropped Teslas, and the footprints that Claudia's flight left in the dust. He turns to Pete and Myka, who can't help cowering under his gaze, just a little bit.

"What. Did you _do_?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Nothing!" Pete tries to wave it off casually. "Just, you know, a little Tesla target practice, like you said. Gotta make sure those Teslas are in peak operating condition!" Artie's not buying it and he seems ready to launch into one of those world-famous lectures before Myka steps in to diffuse the situation.

"Artie?" she says quietly. "Can we talk to you about something for a minute? It's about Claudia."

"Claudia?" Artie's face quickly changes into a look of concern. He'll deny it until his dying breath, but the young tech wizard is like the daughter he never had. "What's wrong? Is she okay?"

"She's fine." Myka assures him. "I'm just worried about her. She's been having these….panic attacks." Quickly, she gives Artie the run-down on what had happened; both the other night and during target practice, with Pete chiming in as necessary. Artie's brow creases, making his eyebrows look even more formidable than usual.

"I take it she doesn't want to talk to anyone about this?"

"If the way she ran off just now is any indication, I'd say that's a pretty clear no." Pete answers. "Any idea where she went?"

"Ah, she has a special place in the Warehouse where she's made herself at home. She won't let anyone see it, though, could be any number of places." Artie's eyes narrow. "Not unlike your Pete-Cave, actually." Pete's jaw drops while Myka tries unsuccessfully to smother her laughter.

"You _know_ about that?!" Artie waves off the revelation.

"Of course I do, I've known about it for a year, now can we get back to the situation at hand, please?" Myka takes a deep breath to regain control of herself.

"So, what should we do? I mean, should we try to go talk to her? Should we call Dr. Vanessa? What about Joshua?" Artie shakes his head.

"Not yet. The last thing Claudia needs right now is people trampling all over her space. She just needs time to calm down. She'll come out eventually, in her own due time."

"But –" Myka and Pete begin to protest, but Artie silences them with a rather violent slash of his hand through the air.

"Silence! Enough! No buts! End of discussion! Now, you two have a flight to New York in two hours. We have…a _ping_!"


End file.
